Archive for month: March, 2017

Yes, I’ll say it, I am a self proclaimed phone addict. My mind runs so fast that I am constantly thinking about things I want to accomplish, questions I want to look up, noting things I don’t want to forget, etc. It’s not really all about social media or staying in touch I just happen to utilize my phone to answer and help me with all the stuff that runs through my head. Unfortunately sometimes this means that my attention is taken from my children to be on my phone. I am definitely not perfect.

I’m not one to judge,but for the LOVE of God please put down your fucking cell phone!!!!!! I see you, I see you all the time.

I have seen you out to dinner with your family and everyone has a device in their hand.

I have seen you checking your phone while your young children walk next to you in a parking lot (you can’t even put it in your pocket long enough to ensure they make it safely to their vehicle!

I’ve seen you so immersed in your phone that you have no idea what kind of games your children are playing at the park and I’ve watched you at “school”, when you are supposed to be working one on one with your child, never look up from your phone at all unless your realize your child has moved on to a new toy.

Ask yourself what is so Goddamn important.

I am a stay at home mother of two small children. Believe it or not I am busy almost all day. It’s so challenging to get things accomplished and at times I do get distracted with my phone for some of the reasons I stated in the beginning. Life isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time and we aren’t perfect, I’m definitely not perfect. I have taken my oldest son who is now three to several different places over the last few months and noticed a trend among parents. They sit on the sidelines on their cell phone or with a friend chatting while their kids are playing. I hope none of them have ever caught me staring but in my head I’m thinking, “really? aren’t we distracted enough already, you can’t put your cell phone away or remove yourself from your important life as an adult to engage with your child for an hour?” I mean the idea of getting that special time to play with my son where I don’t have to think about my boring ass life is literally exhilarating! I can set this time aside to focus just on him, join him in his world and it takes me back to when I used to have an imagination. In fact, I am finding my inner child again and letting her shine through in all of her radiance. Just this past weekend I ventured in to the treeline behind our house and taught my son how to build a fort with sticks. We fought off intruders and walked on our bridge scared to fall in to the alligator pit below. Last week I crawled through holes with my best friend and her son at a local indoor play center that neither of us should have fit through, slid down slides, enjoyed a dinner made by our sons and laughed until we cried at the things they were saying. Had we been sitting in the chairs where the other moms were we would have missed ALL of this.

Today I climbed in to a contraption I thought I might actually die in, crashed an airplane, then rescued myself in an ambulance, AND alerted the fire department that there was a problem (whew I’m tired). I’ve belly crawled from my kitchen to his bedroom to “pew pew” his daddy and baby brother with our blocks (we don’t say guns because DUH it’s not politically correct to play cops and robbers or ESPECIALLY cowboys and Indians). I’ve played hide and go seek, built blanket forts, jumped on beds, made race tracks out of anything I could possibly imagine in our home, I speak in random accents and dialects throughout the day just to hear him laugh, we’ve run from room to room while the dog chases us, had dance parties on the coffee table, been under arrest more times than I can count, and I know this sounds strange but the other day we sat in the dryer and squealed just to hear ourselves squeal.

THIS is what life is about as parents. These moments we are never going to get back. And I hate to be the one to break it to you but if you don’t put your cell phone away and enjoy these moments you ARE going to regret it. I’ve missed moments before and I know because of a circumstances here or there I may miss one again. But, I made a promise to myself a few months ago that I would set aside time for my children, that I wouldn’t care who saw me being silly, and that I would engage with my sons on their level.

You aren’t a bad parent you just need someone to point it out to you. I challenge you to leave your phone in your purse for awhile the next time you take them to play. Don’t even worry about pictures, just enjoy your child. GET UP, run and play with your babies before they aren’t babies anymore. I promise you won’t regret it.

We were 3 weeks from moving in to our brand new home when we found out we were pregnant. Our builder had been able to build it in just over 3 months and we were stoked to move in. I was definitely a little disappointed because I could have changed some things with the room if I’d known a little boy would be occupying it in a few months. My favorite color is green and since I’d done my other son’s room in black, green and white I felt like I should stick with green but just another shade. I’d seen colored furniture and was pretty drawn to it when I was on Pinterest. I decided these would be my focal points and I chose green, navy and white as the colors to go well with the tan walls.

We had a bedroom set from my husband’s parents. A lot of solid, nice pieces but much too large for us to put in our bedroom. We had gotten a larger bed and smaller dresser since we had a walk-in closet now. I thought I could use the dresser in the nursery, it could double as a changing table. I also saw some “rugby” style curtains I wanted to replicate for about a quarter of the cost they were being sold for online.

Luckily my friend Stefanie came in clutch. She painted Roman’s curtains for his bedroom also. She’s fantastic! Such a great friend, I appreciate her doing this for me. We used regular ol wall paint on these IKEA curtains. They’re a nice, thick almost canvas material. Very nice curtains for the price!

Painting furniture is not difficult. If I can do it anyone can. What it is, is time consuming especially on a piece like this damn dresser. I chose my green color for the furniture. I left the top of the dresser alone. I have re-painted several pieces and always left the top with the original finish. Not only do I think it looks awesome but painting it would make it very easy to chunk up and scratch even with a thick top coat. I did NOT want to do that many topcoats. I found my hardware at Hobby Lobby on sale for 50% off and I was obsessed with it.

I knew I needed to tie in some piece of the chestnut finish from the dresser into the crib. HA! I’m a genius. So I should have taken before and afters but for DIYers this was really easy. I used a thick primer to cover the entire crib. Then, on the top part of the crib I found a chestnut toned paint to paint that area. THEN, on top of that I brushed on a matching stain. It looks so good in person I can’t even begin to explain. To say I was stoked about the finished product is an understatement. I did cover it with several coats of polyurethane to protect it from the tiny trucks on the floor that the toddler felt like he should crash in to them.

Now let’s talk about THE name sign. I’m cracking myself up at how awesome it turned out. I seriously got so lucky. I knew what I had in my head as a vision. I just couldn’t figure out how to get it to come together. Then one day it hit me. I had been trying to sell a pallet sign that I’d made a couple years back for our first house. Why couldn’t I just re purpose it? I did the same thing as I did with the crib. I primed it and then covered it with the paint and stain. Now, I wanted it 3D but wasn’t sure how to get it. Then browsing through Chartruse’s page I SAW it. She had a fenced looking sign in her studio. I took my pallet measurements in and discussed my vision with her. She was able to create the white pallet look on top of my sign then she added the letters which are all ceramic. It’s perfect. The only problem I found was the same thing I had when we had hung it at my first house. my dad had used these L screws to hang it which stuck out and were kind of unsightly. I looked for something to cover them. I found little star lights at Target. Then I sat and tied pieces of burlap, blue and green ribbon on to the lights. I know what you’re thinking…. what kind of time does this chick have? I have none, what I have is a serious lack of sleep because I was doing this AFTER Ryker got here.

While there are so many pieces about the room that I love. My favorite is probably the poem/saying. I had written it before we had Roman and I have a sign in his bedroom with the same saying. It’s pieces from a couple different poems and shows the sides of my husband and I’s views on life which are vastly different. This is what makes us a great team. I had a local printing company print it on a canvas sheet, then I bought a cheap canvas from Michaels, wrapped, and stapled it on. Then, my dad made a frame for it. MUCH MUCH cheaper than what you can buy them for anywhere else.

That little lion is from a local Alpaca farm, it’s made of Alpaca fur (if that’s the technical term). I bought a bear for Roman and had maternity pictures taken with it so I knew I wanted one for Ryker.

You can see the red clock that I got from Target in the above picture. I liked my color pallet but I wanted some pops of red. I kept combing through my Pinterest boards and running across a Radio Flyer wagon shelf. I needed one! I took to the Facebook buy, sell, and trade sites. I had a woman contact me who wanted to just give me her wagon. It wasn’t in good shape but it was perfect for what we were doing with it. I picked up some red spray paint, touched up the rough spots and my dad went to town to make me a shelf!

The rest was pretty easy!

I found some barbed wire rustic stars in my decorations in the basement to hang. I had never used these! I printed some maternity pictures taken by the amazing Christopher Withers and mod podged them on some more cheap Michaels canvases.

The Be Brave sign came from Hobby Lobby.

The French Bulldog light is from Target. I spray painted it blue to match the room (it was originally white). We have a Frenchie so this was a no brainer.

The small little bookshelf was from IKEA, it’s actually a spice rack and again super cheap.

Thanks for peeking in to my little man’s nursery. If you have any questions on how I did anything feel free to leave me a comment or send me a message! I hope you enjoyed my DIY quest to make this room perfect for Ryker. I love conquering my visions, it makes me feel very accomplished.